Troops, Singletons -- and Stuff

J:

"A committe implies a group of people".

Or as I would say,

"implicates"

From wiki:

"a singleton is a set with exactly one element. For example, the set {0} is a singleton."

"I found a set in the room".
"A set of what?"
" {0} -- you said my shoes would be there but they aren't"

---

Wiki:


"Note that a set such as

{{1, 2, 3}}

is also a singleton."

-----

A: You have THREE of them?
B: Yes. But I have arranged them in such a way -- {{1, 2, 3}} -- that they, strictly, only count as one.
A: Gebirge!


Wiki:

"the only element is a set (which itself is however not a singleton). A set is a singleton iff its cardinality is 1."

---- So, if the cardinality of the 'berge' is 1 (The Himalaya) a mountain can be its own range. Or not.

Wiki:

"In the set-theoretic construction of the natural numbers, the number 1 is defined as the singleton {0}. In axiomatic set theory, the existence of singletons is a consequence of the axiom of pairing."

Pretty much as elsewhere. In Biology, too, the existence of plurality is a consequence of (the axiom of) pairing (or 'mating', in the vernacular).

Wiki:

"for any set A that axiom applied to A and A asserts the existence of {A,A}, which is the same as the singleton {A} (since it contains A, and no other set, as element).
If A is any set and S is any singleton, there exists precisely one function from A to S, the function sending every element of A to the one element of S. In topology, a space is a T1 space if and only if every singleton is closed. Structures built on singletons often serve as terminal objects or zero objects of various categories."


---- such as one-mountain mountain ranges -- topologically.

Wiki:

"The statement above shows that the singleton sets are precisely the terminal objects in the category Set of sets. No other sets are terminal. Any singleton can be turned into a topological space in just one way (all subsets are open). These singleton topological spaces are terminal objects in the category of topological spaces and continuous functions. No other spaces are terminal in that category."

--- "ontological pluralism" (needless):

"Any singleton can be turned into a group."

--- "My classes are usually big. His name is Jim."
--- "You are a lucky one. My class is not so big, but the uni still pays for it. Oxford you know."

Wiki:

"Any singleton can be turned into a group in just one way (the unique element serving as identity element). These singleton groups are zero objects in the category of groups and group homomorphisms."

--- "That's strictly, not a one-mountain mountain range. It is a group homomorphism, if you must."

---

Wiki:

"No other groups are terminal in that category. Let S be a class defined by a Boolean-valued function . Then:

"S is called a singleton iff b is equal to some function c, with c(x) = (x = y) for some c." (or something) (check with wiki for formalism -- it's not plain text, by far!).

"Traditionally, this definition was introduced by Whitehead and Russell[1] along with the definition of the natural number 1, a as b , where c." Very complex formulae here, in hypertext. What's wrong with wiki?

See also
Class (set theory)

References
1.^ Whitehead, Alfred North; Bertrand Russell (1861). Principia Mathematica. pp. 37.

Monolingual Implicatures

J:

"I think ordinary usage entails that a set of things --ie a collective or group noun-- has more than one member, otherwise it's just an individual. Could you have a committee with only one person? Not really--the committee implies a group of people. The Alps are a set of mountains, like the rockies--a range. Mt Shasta, just one mountain. Not a range."

Dunno. In my idiolect, 'committee' can apply to just one person. But then people do call me solipsist (only I don't listen).

Mass nouns: from the implicatural to the metaphysical

J discusses some German idioms:

"What about the grand metaphysics, JL? The difference could relate to a universal/particular distinction more evident in the ...traditional euro languages, such as Latin and German (which have the cases, more formal declensions, etc), than in english, french, etc."

---- Yes, but I did study Greek and Latin (to no avail, really) for my Philo degree. And my Latin teacher used to tell me that the Greeks and the Latins were (and are) very confused about number.

--- In Latin and Greek, for example, the neuter plural is -a, as in "agenda" (things to be done, strictly), or "ta meta ta physika". But, sometimes, -a is also used for feminine singular (as in "Maria"). So this is confusing. Some people then are unable to say if something ('agenda') is a neuter-collective (things to be done) or something individual, as "Maria".

---

My teacher knew common-Indo-European (he would use proto-Indoeuropean to pick up girls in bars). They (the proto-Indoeuropeans) were just as confused. Later I learned some etymology of Italian. "Pagliaccio", plural, "Pagliacci". One would think that this is just a relic of Old Roman. But my teacher said that it was originally, "pagliaccios", but with the -s dropped for good measure. So, it's not like there was a direct line -- from the Graeco-Romans (who were confused) to the Romancers (who ARE confused).

The English fare not better. A friend of mine uses 'chicken' only as a plural. (Not to confuse it with 'chickenen'). He also uses 'geet' as the collective (or plural, he doesn't distinguish there) of 'goat'.

J:

"It would take some time to establish, but I think Deutsch allows for more collective nouns, such as Das Hochgebirge (see my latest note-scrawl), w/o the plural indicated."

Yes. They seem to avoid the final -s like the plague. A good collective recourse in English is 'twin' and 'both' and 'tween' as in 'bet-tween'. This is more like "DUAL". The need to lexicalise a 'pair of two'. E.g. "a pair of ..." is perhaps best rendered, I submit, my adding the formative prefix, 'th-', so that 'thball' becomes 'a pair, or two, balls'. While English only lexicalises 'two' ("They both came") rather than 'three' (or larger numbers) I find irritating.

"I said it thrice", says the Bellman in "Hunting of the Snark" ("What I say thrice is true") but that must be it.

As a consequence of this, you see that

"They both came"

neeeds a special formalisation ("Ex.Cx & Ex2 Cx & Cy"). I'm less sure what the Germans mean, as per logical form, by their exclamatives:

"Wunderbar Gebirge!"

----

But then, they possibly treat "Deutschland" as a mass noun, too.




Anglo does allow some collectives but usually indicates the plural. Or something. At least the german doesn't just append "s", but has various ways on indicating plural, collective, mass nouns, etc.

Implicatures Missed (Not Lost) in German(y)

J:

"I could have been a bit more precise. Die Berge is mountains, and Das Gebirge more like mountain range. Die Berge sind sehr schön! The mountains...are very beee-u-tiful
Das Gebirge ist sehr schön! The mountain range is very beautiful."

Exactly. Each is supposed to trigger a different implicature:

--- "Die Berge sind sehr schoen"
--- "Das gebirge ist sehr schoen".

My point is that, truth-conditionally (even truth-functionally) they are equivalent. No way "das gebirge" can NOT be 'schoen' if 'die berge' are NOT. Or vice versa.

J:

"You note that in Angloish sometimes--"The Himalaya is ...sublime". But usually plural...the sierras, the rockies are.... But "mountain range" is singular of course."

---- Well, not Strawsonianly. Surely the Germans may think that you need at least TWO mountains (zwei berge) to make a mountain range (gebirge). Whereas the more logical Griceian point is that one mountain can make its own range.

---

J:

"So. But the point is that a set of objects (like a mountain range) while plural can be treated as singular, in both English and German, though much less frequent in Anglo--I think because of the latinate influence (las montanas, or les montagnes)."


----

Yes. This must be because of the Roman, as per Roman, influence. When I was in Rome, I was constantly reminded of the 'seven' hills, but I didn't notice just ONE. It all seemed rather 'low' to mean. Perhaps ONE hill is noticeable enough -- but Kant say 'seven' are.

---

By the same tokens, for each noun (e.g. 'hill' as in 'the seven hills of Rome') there should be a collective. Which would be absurd.

----

Pencil -- set of pencils?

Apparently, in English you can use -ade or -age to make a collective. So I submit, 'pencilade' and 'pencilage'.

But again, if a pencil is culled out of a pencilade, one by one, so that the pencilade ends up as consitsting just of ONE pencil, I would still call it a 'pencilade' (which makes the singular-plural distintion otiose -- and as such unrecognised by Frege and Grice -- "(Ex)" "some (at least one)" --.

I would go Meinongian and say that if ALL the pencils are culled out of the pencilade, the thing while may not sub-sist, still 'in-sists'. (Ex-istence, in-sistence, sub-sistence), etc.

Die Berge, Das Gebirge: A Gricean otiosity (in Germany)

In Germany (German), if you see a set of mountains, you exclaim, "Beautiful gebirge", where 'gebirge' is collective for 'set of mountains'. The point is that the thing is perceived (alla Strawson) as an 'individual'. This is totally different, they claim, from "What beautiful mountains!"

Die Berge des Himalaya (The mountains of Himalaya). Everest, K2, Kanchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Dhaulagiri I, Manaslu, Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak, ...
www.himalaya-info.org/ -

I claim that the difference is implicatural. Alla, "One troop was killed and his name was Jim."

gebirge: or "German Grice"

So, the plural of 'berg' is "berge"

and it translates:

Oxford-Duden German Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:

"Bẹrg der; Bẹrg[e]s, Bẹrge

a.

"hill"

;
(im Hochgebirge) mountain;

b.(Haufen) huge pile;
(von Akten, Abfall auch) mountain

---

Note: "im Hochgebirge", though. Versus the simpler, "gebirge".

Or something (especially something).

A one-mountain "gebirge": how collective can the German ("Hun") be?

J:

"Der Berg = mountain. Das Gebirge = mountains. In that case I reluctantly grant that the piratenzunge, aka Anglo might be superior, or at least easier than the formal yet poetic Deutsch."

Poetic?

The logical point is geographical. Surely, there are no big mountains in England (cfr. that Wales-filmed film with Hugh Grant, "The Englishman who went up a hill and come down a mountain", or something).

J:

"There is a Mountain; there are the mountains. So the Anglo picks up the french-y plural with "s", instead of german root changes, case, and the blasted articles."

Yes. But surely the Germans could just as well called these "die" (plural 'the') and 'Berge' (plural for 'Berg', as in "Die Berge des Himalaya", in Asia, as seen by the Germans). So 'ge-birge' seems otiose, and odd.

J:

"But in German there are few if any ambiguities (same with trad. latin, and greek I imagine). The cases/plurals/objects are always quite clear (if puzzling to Mericans, who want to know why mountains are male...o Mr Mountain. Then they do the same with any euro language...Las Montanas...what the F's up wit' dat, Jed? Montanas? Like a female mountain?? )

----

Yes, the blame is in indo-European, which had gender.
Oddly, English still retains gender ("That ship is a beauty, she is" -- but oddly, I was told that 'ship' was a _neuter_ noun in Old English).

But I may want to analyse further the problem with the one-mountain 'mountain group' (gebirge). So stay tuned.

The pragmatics (and implicatures) of collectives: number problems

A commentary on the wiki for "Collective noun"

"In linguistics, a collective noun is a word used to define a group of objects, where objects can be people, animals, emotions, inanimate things, concepts, or other things."

"where objects can be objects", I'd prefer to say. But then I'm no linguist. Don't you get slightly irritated by the phrase: "in linguistics". Surely we don't need to specify, in WHAT. Cfr. "In zoology, an elephant has a trunk."

---

The wiki continues:

"For example, in the phrase "a pride of lions," pride is a collective noun."

i.e. a collection of lions.

"Most collective nouns encountered in everyday speech, such as "group," are mundane and are not specific to one kind of constituent object."

Or 'menge' in German -- or 'set' in English. There is a symbolism for this:

A =E [a, b, ... n] where A is a 'set' and a,b,...n its members. If we can provide such a symbolism for a claim, then the denotans for 'A' is a collective

The wiki:

""For example, the terms "group of people," "group of dogs," and "group of ideas" are all correct uses. Others, especially words belonging to the large subset of collective nouns known as terms of venery (words for groups of animals), are specific to one kind of constituent object. For example, "pride" as a term of venery refers to lions— but not to dogs or llamas."

---- It's odd that a linguist should use 'correct' and 'incorrect' like that. I wouldn't think that "a pride of mice" is INCORRECT, per se. After all, 'pride' as in 'pride of lions' is a metaphor, i.e. a conversational implicature. It's nothing about what is being _said_.

The wiki:

"Collective nouns should not be confused with mass nouns, or with the collective grammatical number."

Just because they say I shouldn't confuse them, I do. I find this the 'counter-suggestion' type of style. "The WWI should not be confused with the WII". Who said we should?

Wiki:

"Derivation accounts for many collective words. Because derivation is a slower and less productive word formation process than the more overtly syntactical morphological methods, there are fewer collectives formed this way. As with all derived words, derivational collectives often differ semantically from the original words, acquiring new connotations and even new denotations. The English endings

"-age"

and

"-ade"

often signify a collective. Sometimes the relationship is easily recognizable:

baggage
drainage
blockade.

"However, even though the etymology is plain to see, the derived words take on quite a special meaning. German uses the prefix

"Ge-"

to create collectives. The root word often undergoes umlaut and suffixation as well as receiving the Ge- prefix. Nearly all nouns created in this way are of neuter gender. Examples include:

"das Gebirge"

"group of mountains," from der Berg, "mountain"

"das Gepäck",

"luggage, baggage" from der Pack, "pack, bundle, pile"

"das Geflügel",

"poultry, fowl (birds)" from late MHG gevlügel(e), under the influence of der Flügel, "wing," from MHG gevügel, from OHG gifugili = collective formation, from fogal, "bird"

"das Gefieder", "plumage" from die Feder, "feather"

----

Personally, I wouldn't think it is NECESSARY to have created a word for 'group of birds'. What's wrong with 'birds'?

---


"Two good examples of collective nouns are "team" and "government," which are both words referring to groups of (usually) people."

In America, they use 'administration', too, as opposed to 'government'. Strictly, 'administration' and 'government' are ABSTRACT things. Surely it would be odd to say that 'the government were wearing a bow-tie' or 'white shoes'.

The wiki:


"Both "team" and "government" are count nouns. (Consider: "one team," "two teams," "most teams"; "one government," "two governments," "many governments")."

The bother is the one-member team. Some team-work.

This relates to Grice's idea of the 'conversational implicature' as concerted speech. He argues that one cannot conversationally implicate to oneself. But I often contradict him on that. I like to mislead myself by non-detaching an implicatum via disentailment, or something.

Wiki:

"However, confusion often stems from the fact that plural verb forms can often be used, at least in English as it is used in several countries,"

---- as in the Austrian country, where they speak Austrian".

"with the singular forms of these count nouns (for example: "The team have finished the project")."

Even if it's a one-member team. "The team, who was called Jim, have finished the conversation."

Wiki:

"Conversely, singular verb forms can often be used with nouns ending in "-s" that were once considered plural (for example: "Physics is my favorite academic subject")."

"But metaphysics was Grice's".

"This apparent "number mismatch" is actually a quite natural and logical feature of human language,"

Logical? Implicatural, rather!

"and its mechanism is a subtle metonymic shift in the thoughts underlying the words. In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms depending on the context and the metonymic shift that it implies. For example,

"the team is in the dressing room"

(formal agreement)"

--

"And her name is [are?] Susan".

"refers to the team as an ensemble, whilst

"the team are fighting among themselves" (notional agreement)

--- "and her name 'are' Susan?"

"refers to the team as individuals. This is also British English practice with names of countries and cities in sports contexts; for example,

"Germany have won the competition,"

---- but not "We lost our lugagge in Germany. Their airports are a mess."

Wiki:

""Madrid have lost three consecutive matches,"

------ "they were numbered, 'match 1', 'match 2', and 'match 3', and they were all in the same match box. Madrid's last name is Phillips and her personality is split."


"etc. In American English, collective nouns usually take singular verb forms (formal agreement), but either a singular or plural verb is correct American usage where the noun is understood as a group of individual components."

--- as in "One troop was killed and his name was Francis."

Wiki:

"In cases where a metonymic shift would be otherwise revealed nearby, the whole sentence may be recast to avoid the metonymy. (For example, "the team are fighting among themselves" may become "the team members are fighting among themselves" or "the team is fighting [full stop].")

----

"The team, whose name is Susan, is fighting" (?)

"See American and British English differences - Formal and notional agreement. A good example of such a metonymic shift in the singular-to-plural direction (designated by the Latin term

"plurale tantum") is the following sentence: "The team have finished the project." In that sentence, the underlying thought is of the individual members of the team working together to finish the project."


--

as in

"Philip implicated to Philip that by uttering 'you are the cream in my coffee' Philip was Philip's pride and joy.

Wiki:

"Their accomplishment is collective, and the emphasis is not on their individual identities, yet they are at the same time still discrete individuals;"

---

as in:

"It's the same old gang -- her name is Patricia."

Wiki:

"the word choice "team have" manages to convey both their collective and discrete identities simultaneously. A good example of such a metonymic shift in the plural-to-singular direction is the following sentence: "Mathematics is my favorite academic subject.""

--- and Metaphysics was Aristotle's.

Wiki:

"The word "mathematics" may have originally been plural in concept, referring to mathematic endeavors, but metonymic shift—that is, the shift in concept from "the endeavors" to "the whole set of endeavors"—produced the usage of "mathematics" as a singular entity taking singular verb forms."


----

It was different with 'metaphysics'. Since this originated as "ta meta ta physika". The stuff (or stuffs) coming after the physical stuff (or stuffs).

Wiki:

"(A true mass-noun sense of "mathematics" followed naturally.) Nominally singular pronouns can be collective nouns taking plural verbs, according to the same rules that apply to other collective nouns. For example, it is correct British English or American English usage to say."

"None are so fallible as those who are sure they're right."

-----

And her name is Susan?

"In this case, the plural verb is used because the context for "none" suggests more than one thing or person.[1]"

"There is often confusion about, and confounding of, the two different concepts of collective noun and mass noun."

I actually dislike the term 'mass' as in 'mass noun'. I think 'mass' belongs in physics, not grammar. Surely Newton would have objected to the use of "mass" noun in _grammar_.

Wiki:

"Generally, collective nouns are not mass (non-count) nouns, but rather are a special subset of count nouns. However, the term "collective noun" is often used to mean "mass noun" (even in some dictionaries), because users confound two different kinds of verb number invariability."

"(a) that seen with mass nouns such as "water" or "furniture," with which only singular verb forms are used because the constituent matter is grammatically nondiscrete (although it may ["water"] or may not ["furniture"] be etically nondiscrete)"

--- etically?

Surely, "she gave me a lot of waters" sounds rude.


"; and (b) that seen with collective nouns, which is the result of the metonymical shift, discussed earlier, between the group and its (both grammatically and etically) discrete constituents."

Strictly,

"She gave me a lot of DROPS (of water)."

"Some words, including "mathematics" and "physics," have developed true mass-noun senses despite having grown from count-noun roots."

"The tradition of using collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals stems from an English Medieval hunting tradition, dating back to at least the fifteenth century."

Before the hunting tradition (the monks), the monks did not hunt, hence the lack of venery collective terms in England during the time of the monks.

Wiki:

"Terms of venery [2] were used by gentlemen to distinguish themselves from yeomen and others and formed part of their education. Only a few of the terms were for groups of animals; others, such as "singular" for boars, described their characteristics or habits of life."

Oddly, singular is plural.

Wiki:

""Singular" may also be a corruption of the French ("sanglier")."

But then most French (people) are corrupted, so they (the French, collectively) wouldn't know.

Wiki:

"Misunderstandings over the centuries led to all the terms being regarded as collective nouns and some became unrecognisable through changes to the language and transcription errors: "besynys" (for ferrets) became "fesynes" instead of "busy-ness." Sometimes a term of venery will apply to a group only in a certain context."

""Herd" can properly refer to a group of wild horses, but not to a group of domestic horses."

where 'domestic' is in the eye of ... ?

(Surely a horse can be wild to me and domestic to you -- or vice versa).

Wiki:

"A "paddling of ducks" only refers to ducks on water."

As 'prostitutes in a brothel' only refers to prostitutes in a brothel.

"A group of geese on the ground is referred to as a "gaggle of geese" while a "skein of geese" would refer to them in flight."

and what's the word for a skein of geese as cooked and served with potatoes on a table?

Wiki:

"Interest in constituent-object-specific collective nouns has always remained high, and the coining of candidate collective nouns has been a pastime (usually humorous) of many writers, including for non-animal nouns, such as professions, e.g., a "sequitur of logicians."

--- and a 'scruple' of Griceans as someone suggested. I prefer "a grouse of grice" (In British English, 'grouse' is pronounced 'grice').


"See also: Linguistics concepts, Grammatical number, Mass noun, Measure words, Plural
Plurale tantum, Synesis
List of collective nouns for mammals
List of collective nouns for birds
List of collective nouns for fish, invertebrates, and plants
List of collective nouns for reptiles and amphibians
list of collective nouns for animals
Lexical categories and their features
Noun Abstract/Concrete · Adjectival · Agent · Animate/Inanimate · Attributive · Collective · Common/Proper · Countable · Deverbal · Initial-stress-derived · Mass · Relational · Strong · Verbal · Weak
Verb Verb forms Finite · Non-finite — Attributive · Converb · Gerund · Gerundive · Infinitive · Participle (adjectival · adverbial) · Supine · Verbal noun
Verb types Accusative · Ambitransitive · Andative/Venitive · Anticausative · Autocausative · Auxiliary · Captative · Catenative · Compound · Copular · Defective · Denominal · Deponent · Ditransitive · Dynamic · ECM · Ergative · Frequentative · Impersonal · Inchoative · Intransitive · Irregular · Lexical · Light · Modal · Monotransitive · Negative · Performative · Phrasal · Predicative · Preterite-present · Reflexive · Regular · Separable · Stative · Stretched · Strong · Transitive · Unaccusative · Unergative · Weak
Adjective Collateral · Demonstrative · Possessive · Post-positive
Adverb Genitive · Conjunctive · Flat · Prepositional · Pronomial
Pronoun Demonstrative · Disjunctive · Distributive · Donkey · Dummy · Formal/Informal · Gender-neutral · Gender-specific · Inclusive/Exclusive · Indefinite · Intensive · Interrogative · Objective · Personal · Possessive · Prepositional · Reciprocal · Reflexive · Relative · Resumptive · Subjective · Weak
Preposition Inflected · Casally modulated
Conjunction
Determiner Article · Demonstrative · Interrogative · Possessive · Quantifier
Classifier
Particle Discourse · Modal · Noun
Complementizer
Other Copula · Coverb · Expletive · Interjection (verbal) · Measure word · Preverb · Pro-form · Pro-sentence · Pro-verb · Procedure word
English language
Wiktionary appendix of Collective Nouns
Interdisciplinary
Social units

References
1.^ Strunk & White, The Elements of Style (4th ed., 2000), p. 10.
2.^ Lipton, James (1993). An Exaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition. USA: Penguin Books. pp. 5–7. ISBN 0 14 01.7096 0.

Hodgkin, John.

Proper Terms: An attempt at a rational explanation of the meanings of the Collection of Phrases in "The Book of St Albans," 1486, entitled

"The Compaynys of beestys and fowlys" and similar lists., Transactions of the Philological Society 1907-1910 Part III, pp 1 - 187, Kegan, Paul, Trench & Trübner & Co, Ltd, London, 1909.

Shulman, Alon. A Mess of Iguanas... A Whoop of Gorillas: An Amazement of Animal Facts. Penguin. (First published Penguin 2009.) ISBN 9781846142550.

Lipton, James. An Exaltation of Larks, or The "Veneral" Game. Penguin. (First published Grossman Publishers 1968.) (Penguin first reprint 1977 ISBN 0140045368); in 1993 it was republished in Penguin with The Ultimate Edition as part of the title with the ISBN 0140170960 Hardcover Paperback

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun"

Categories: Grammar | Rhetoric | Grammatical number | Lists of collective nouns

The pragmatics of collectives

Chapman retells that when Grice did try to follow Austin and go 'through the dictionary' he stopped at "feeling Byzantine" (he covered the "A" to "B"). Ditto for me on the collective under wiki. Collectives for "A" include as per the below and it's enough to give you a headake.

Surely it would be misleading to refer to ONE 'ant' as forming an 'army'. But then people DO say 'the troop's name was Jim". So there.

---


Subject Collective Term
ants An army of ants[2]
ants A bike of ants[2]
ants A colony of ants[2]
ants A swarm of ants[2]
antelope A cluster of antelope[2]
antelope A herd of antelope[2]
antelope A tribe of antelope[2]
apes A shrewdness of apes[1]
apes A troop of apes[2]
asses (roped) A coffle of asses[2]
asses (driven) A drove of asses[2]
asses A herd of asses[2]
asses A pace of asses[1]
auks (on land) A colony of auks[2]
auks (at sea) A flock of auks[2]
auks (on water) A raft of auks[2]

The Grice Club And Its Members (Was: "The pragmatics of collectives": Was: "one troop too few"

J:

"in terms of language use your own descriptivist view would seem to imply accepting "gang" as a collective, not a single person, which is indicated by gangster (a member of a gang, like included...hey set theory, in brief!)."

---- Yes. There is a detail as to verb form (cfr. Davidson, "The logic of action sentences"). Strictly, "the gang WERE dangerous", rather than "was" dangerous ("The gang are dangerous").

---

J:

""gang" is germanic/deutsch---as in walk, ie Gangplank, related to v. "gehen", to go ( "gegangen" gone). So yr correct that it's sort of awkward as well, and the use in English for "mob", or "group of criminals" fairly recent,"

I wonder if that originated -- where? It is odd that because some people are GOING (somewhere) they are a "gang"). Incidentally, when I walk my dog, I'm in a gang, too.

(and so is my dog).


"but...English, ie anglo-saxonish has always been a mishmash, if not a mess (as one old philosophaster told me...). But at least in Anglo, it seems coherent to show a difference between the group, and the individual (as type theory would imply as well). Gang, gangster; troop, trooper; mob, mobster. Even if it sounds like piratenzunge to a native German."

Well, but what about "Grice Club". Surely that's a collective. "The Grice Club were dangerous". Surely, if we all die (etc.) the phrase "The Grice Club" does NOT become vacuous. So, the SEMANTICS of "Grice Club" (or 'flock of criminals') is stuffy enough (full of stuff -- vide Jones on "Vacuous Names", his pdf in his site). Never mind the PRAGMATICS.

It's odd that while you, J, me, and Jones -- and Grice, etc. -- understand the lambda operations and the type-theories, most people who use words like 'mob', 'gang', or 'club' do NOT (necessarily). And so, they treat 'troop' (qua collective) at the same level of 'troop' as a MEMBER of a collective. A one-'troop' troop is still a troop. And literally, a troop EXISTS, qua type, beyond its (or her?, "troupe" is feminine in French) members.

J:

"As far as practical editing/journalist I think the preferred usage is service people, men/women serving in the military, or in uniform, perhaps soldiers. The use of "troops" is colloquial (tho' often used....but really "support our troops" seems to suggest, like support our groups of soldiers, or our teams, our gangs, etc)."

Yes. I'll check with wiki what they have about collectives. It would be interesting to check if they are necessary -- collectives -- and if they translate to ALL languages.

Etc.

The pragmatics of collectives (Was: "one troop too few")

J:

"As far as the slightly logical point, would you consider one person a ...gang itself? So...Lil G. shows up on yr street, representing for the....Q street boys. Just by hisself. You and yr homies see him out there: yo Lil G, are you in a gang? He say's yeah. So where are yr homies, Lil G? He says" I don't have any.Im the gang, Lil G of Q Street boys." Yd probably call the mental health authorities as well as cops. A Gang implies a collective group, plurality. Same for ...troop, I believe."

Well, 'gang', since you are into etymythology and like to focus that 'troup' is Germanic, in origin, so is 'gang'.

"Gang" is German, and I think it means 'go' in German-A 'go go' girl' is a gang-gang girl.

Surely there's nothing contradictory about ONE girl 'going'. A 'gang', literally.

My point is Griceian and Hornian, or something.

It concerns 'numerals', and the idea that it's very irritating to have the semantics of one's language depend on imprecisions like that.

Consider '1'.

Apparently, '1' was not a number for the Greeks (number = 'arithmos'). McLarty -- a mathematician -- explained that to me. "1" was the UNITY. We wouldn't say that an elephant has "a number of trunks" -- he has just one.

Still, I would think that it can be argued that '1' IS possibly a number.

McLarty irritated me further by pointing out to me that '2' was NEITHER a 'number' for the Greeks. It was the 'pair'. "3" was the FIRST number.

(Of course this was before the Arabs, who confused things further by saying that "0" is a number -- "There are a number of eggs in the basket." "What number?" "Zero eggs".

Cfr. zero-tolerance.

----

So, my point is about numerals. Surely it would be odd to say that a 'gang' has to have at least TWO members.

It's better to deal with 'collectives' as 'abstractions' or logical constructions, alla Russell. It's a different "Type" (as Russell's theory of types indicates).

----

So, we have a 'gang' which means, 'going' out. For some reason, when this word was first used, it was indicated that "a number" of people were going out, but that is neither here nor there.

---

Most collectives are like that.

--- although I haven't surveyed them ALL. It may be that in SOME expressions of a 'collective', the thing IS entailed (rather than conversationally implicated, as I prefer).

So if you say,

"I saw a gang in the corner".

"Lucy?"

"Yes --"

"But she is on her own".

"So? That's what 'gang' means, etymologically."


---

From online source:

gang--
O.E. gong "a going, journey, way, passage," and O.N. gangr "a group of men, a set," both from P.Gmc. *gangaz (noun of action related to *gangan "to go"), from PIE base *ghengh- "to step" (cf. Skt. jangha "shank," Avestan zanga- "ankle," Lith. zengiu "I stride"). The sense evolution is probably via meaning "a set of articles that are usually taken together in going," especially a set of tools used on the same job. By 1620s this had been extended in nautical speech to mean "a company of workmen," and by 1630s the word was being used, with disapproving overtones, for "any band of persons traveling together." Gangway preserves the original sense of the word, as does gangplank. To gang up (on) is first attested 1925. To come on like gangbusters (c.1940) is from radio drama "Gangbusters" (1937-57) which always opened with a cacophony of sirens, screams, shots, and jarring music. Gang of Four (1976) translates Chinese sirenbang, the nickname given to the four leaders of the Cultural Revolution who took the fall in Communist China after the death of Mao.

One troop too few?

J:

"syntactically speaking, it should be trooper, or even troopster, instead of "troop" (as "gangster" comes from "gang")."

----

I wonder if Syntax exists. I think "Syntax" is feminine, qua noun. As when in Italian they say "Virtu" (Virtue), another feminine.

It's US (utterers) who create syntax. So, when people say "troop" rather than 'trooper', one wonders who is following who.

I claim that if people use "troop" when 'syntactically' they should be using 'trooper', then it's 'syntax' that has to adapt to that. Not the other way round?


J goes on:

""Troop" is just the usual American slang... per Bierce..."the grunt of the human hog." Dubya should have said, "I shall not put troopsters in harm's way.""

------

Yes. One troopster too few.

I'm using 'too few' on purpose. I find that the idiom is, in general, for some reason, "one --- too many" -- but surely there is no logical reason why

"one --- too FEW"

should not make sense too.

---- If the 'troop' (collective) includes only one troopster ('troop' in this other sense), then McWhorther is claiming that a one-troop troop (a troop with just one troopster) has 'one troop too few'. With TWO TROOPS (two people) the troop (qua collective) is ok.

But the Griceian point is that this is implicatural. Surely a one-troopster troop is still a troop:

"The troop ARE coming".

---

J:

""Grunt" as noun also works for infantrymen, but some might take offense. I still think McWhorter was mostly correct that professional writers should use "soldiers" (or servicepeople, perhaps) over the slang "troops"."


------ and corpseman? (:)).

J:


"Moreoever I think the OED snobs are mistaken re etymology of "troop." While it did become frenchified, and used for like "troupe of thespians" it's quite clearly germanic-goth, ala dorf, thorp, thrup (with the theta). The GMC entered the frankish often. The quasi-latinate "troppus" followed the GMC pretty evidently --but the OED have a latinate presumption (with some reason)."

----

Yes, but surely there is some charm about a theatrical troup which only includes a troupster.

"We used to be a double-act," reminisced Costello (of Abbot and Costello fame), but when Abbott left, I was the troupe."

J:

"There are cognates with the goth in sanskrit I believe--as with many GMC words."

---- I'll check them out.

Let's reconsider the original query to Michael Quinion, from Rosemary Delnavine:

"For at least as long as Western troops have been occupying
Afghanistan and Iraq, news reports have routinely misused the word
"troops""

'misuse' is being misused here!

"when talking about soldiers. Am I right in thinking that
"three troops were wounded" not only sounds daft but is incorrect
when what is meant is "three soldiers"?"

Not according to the OED. Although a scare quote would not harm: "Three 'troops' were wounded".

Now, if they were killed, 'wounded' would be underinformative, mind.

Rosemary goes on:

""Three troopers", yes, if
they were part of a regiment that is or was mounted."

Exactly. There's the regiment and there's the 'troop'. Technically, in theory, the number of SOLDIERS per troop should be fixed. I read a lot about the Roman army and the numbers were quite great, I mean high, I mean big.

---- Surely a one-soldier troop would be VERY GRICEAIANLY still called a 'troop', but not FALSELY.

Quinion answers:

"This usage has been bugging Americans in recent years,"

and not Brits? Surely they consume the same newspapers!

"with a
lot of comment appearing on language-related sites.
The traditional position that you are likely to find in reference
books is that "troop" is a collective term for a group of people of
unspecified number (it's from medieval Latin "troppus", a flock,
and is the same word as "troupe" for a theatrical group)."


------

Surely it would be misleading to say that you saw a flock of ostriches flying around -- for one, they don't fly, for another, what if it was just ONE?

--


"You can
refer to more than one troop in the sense of a set of such
collections ("the jamboree was attended by several dozen scout
troops")"


---- Or, the crops were attended by several flocks.


"and use "troops" as a generalised collective term for the
forces ("the occasion was full of emotion and flag-waving as the
crowds lined the streets of Morpeth to give the troops a rousing
Northumbrian welcome.")."

Only it turned out that the only survivor in the troops was "Tommy -- troopster -- Atkins", who lacked a leg. (Bad humour, but this is fiction).

"The usage of "troops" that [Rosemary] refer[s] to is actually not that new.
For more than two centuries writers have used it for a countable
number of individuals, provided the number is large and not closely
specified."

---- Surely something as VAGUE as that cannot be given a 'meaning postulate' alla Carnap. "Large enough". Consider, "His nose is big". "Big meaning 'large enough and not closely specified'?

Quinion:

"An early example:
This Attack is to be commanded by General Alvinzy; and
the Army which he will lead to it will consist of Fifty
Thousand Troops in the highest order and spirits, and
confident of success.
[The True Briton (London), 1 Feb. 1797.]"

-----

5,000 troops -- meaning 5,000 soldiers.

The problem is if by diminution you get

1-member troop -- meaning 1 soldier (or 'troop').


Quinion adds:

"It's easy to find many similar instances throughout the nineteenth
century, so it's notable that the Oxford English Dictionary's entry
for "troop", written in the early years of the twentieth century,
doesn't include this plural countable use. Despite this long history, many people continue to be unhappy about it. The linguist John McWhorter objected to it on National Public Radio in March 2007: "Calling 20,000 soldiers '20,000 troops'
depersonalizes the soldiers as individuals, and makes a massive
number of living, breathing individuals sound like some kind of
mass or substance, like water or Jell-O, or some kind of freight."
He noted in particular that "This usage of troops is only possible
in the plural."


But here is where he goes wrong, because the OED has a 1832 quote where 'troop' IS used in the singular.


"One cannot refer to a single soldier as a troop. ..."

But one CAN. What McWhorter means, as per Grice ('avoid ambiguity'?) is that one SHOULDN'T.

McWhorter:

"This means that mothers do not kiss their troop goodbye as he takes
off for Anbar Province. One will never encounter a troop learning
to use her prosthetic leg."


Quinion comments:

"It's becoming ever clearer that this
objection won't survive the pressure of current usage, at least by
the US media. "Troop" is increasingly being employed in reports for
an individual member of the armed forces:
The international force in Afghanistan says three
American troops have been killed by a roadside bomb in
the violence-wracked south. A NATO statement says two
troops died immediately after the blast Tuesday.
[AP News, 7 Jul. 2010.]
It came particularly to public notice in early November 2006, when
Senator John Kerry made an unfortunate joke and had to apologise:
"As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform
and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not
about, and never intended to refer to any troop."
I'm told that singular "troop" for an individual has been recorded
in US military slang from World War Two. People who were in the
services during the 1950s and 1960s say it was then common in the
Army."

And here is the crucial quote of 1832 that refutes McWhorter's point about 'troop' not being used in the singular.

Quinion:

"The Oxford English Dictionary added the sense to the entry
for "troop" in 1993 (despite continuing to omit the countable
plural form), with one isolated case from 1832 (


"As the wounded 'troop' was not much hurt, a sort of truce was proclaimed."),

but
noted it was then chiefly military."

---- As if some words could only be used by, say, prostitutes. Surely we need to be liberal, Griceainly, at this point.

Quinion:

"That's no longer true. "Troop" has developed into a singular and small plural count noun for several reasons. There are now many more women in the various
US armed forces and this presents gender-related difficulties in
finding suitable terms for individuals ("serviceman" doesn't work
any longer). More significantly, it's been difficult to find an
inclusive term for a single member of the combined services -
soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and so on. "Serviceperson" or
"member of the armed forces" hardly trip off the tongue. The US
Department of Defense likes "servicemember" but that works only in
bureaucratese, not in news headlines or everyday speech. Though
"trooper" is available in theory, it's restricted in American usage
mainly to a member of the state police, and otherwise to a mounted
soldier in a cavalry regiment. "Warrior" has been popular, within
and outside the military, but has connotations that have rendered
it unpopular or unsuitable for some. "Combatant" is almost always
pejorative ("enemy combatant"). Not least, "troop" is usefully
short for fitting into headlines.
Despite wide unhappiness about it, there's no doubt that singular
"troop" has become a settled part of the language of the US media.
But I agree with John McWhorter that it will be some while, if
ever, before a member of the armed forces describes himself or
herself as a troop, not least because mutual pride and loyalties
within a service mean that specific terms such as soldier or airman
will continue to take precedence."

----

Yes, 'soldier' is too long of a word. "Tom" as in "tommy" (Atkins) may be better, but perhaps it's too masculine. (Although Tomasa is an Italian name).

And so on.

In general, I am with J in preferring monosyllabic words unless I find something specifically too supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to be true (or false, for that matter).

One troop too few?

This below excerpted from the World Wide Words -- I should commented it, so that it makes more sense rather than just copying from online source.

But note that in my note, "One troop to many", I did reorder the material, and focused on the OED quote, as contradicting McWhorter's statement.

Of course I'm only interested in Grice-Club bloggers -- like J and me -- and what we think about this!

---

---

Begin cited text:


Q. For at least as long as Western troops have been occupying
Afghanistan and Iraq, news reports have routinely misused the word
"troops" when talking about soldiers. Am I right in thinking that
"three troops were wounded" not only sounds daft but is incorrect
when what is meant is "three soldiers"? "Three troopers", yes, if
they were part of a regiment that is or was mounted. [Rosemary
Delnavine]

A. This usage has been bugging Americans in recent years, with a
lot of comment appearing on language-related sites.

The traditional position that you are likely to find in reference
books is that "troop" is a collective term for a group of people of
unspecified number (it's from medieval Latin "troppus", a flock,
and is the same word as "troupe" for a theatrical group). You can
refer to more than one troop in the sense of a set of such
collections ("the jamboree was attended by several dozen scout
troops") and use "troops" as a generalised collective term for the
forces ("the occasion was full of emotion and flag-waving as the
crowds lined the streets of Morpeth to give the troops a rousing
Northumbrian welcome.").

The usage of "troops" that you refer to is actually not that new.
For more than two centuries writers have used it for a countable
number of individuals, provided the number is large and not closely
specified. An early example:

This Attack is to be commanded by General Alvinzy; and
the Army which he will lead to it will consist of Fifty
Thousand Troops in the highest order and spirits, and
confident of success.
[The True Briton (London), 1 Feb. 1797.]

It's easy to find many similar instances throughout the nineteenth
century, so it's notable that the Oxford English Dictionary's entry
for "troop", written in the early years of the twentieth century,
doesn't include this plural countable use.

Despite this long history, many people continue to be unhappy about
it. The linguist John McWhorter objected to it on National Public
Radio in March 2007: "Calling 20,000 soldiers '20,000 troops'
depersonalizes the soldiers as individuals, and makes a massive
number of living, breathing individuals sound like some kind of
mass or substance, like water or Jell-O, or some kind of freight."

He noted in particular that "This usage of troops is only possible
in the plural. One cannot refer to a single soldier as a troop. ...
This means that mothers do not kiss their troop goodbye as he takes
off for Anbar Province. One will never encounter a troop learning
to use her prosthetic leg." It's becoming ever clearer that this
objection won't survive the pressure of current usage, at least by
the US media. "Troop" is increasingly being employed in reports for
an individual member of the armed forces:

The international force in Afghanistan says three
American troops have been killed by a roadside bomb in
the violence-wracked south. A NATO statement says two
troops died immediately after the blast Tuesday.
[AP News, 7 Jul. 2010.]

It came particularly to public notice in early November 2006, when
Senator John Kerry made an unfortunate joke and had to apologise:
"As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform
and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not
about, and never intended to refer to any troop."

I'm told that singular "troop" for an individual has been recorded
in US military slang from World War Two. People who were in the
services during the 1950s and 1960s say it was then common in the
Army. The Oxford English Dictionary added the sense to the entry
for "troop" in 1993 (despite continuing to omit the countable
plural form), with one isolated case from 1832 ("As the wounded
'troop' was not much hurt, a sort of truce was proclaimed."), but
noted it was then chiefly military. That's no longer true.

"Troop" has developed into a singular and small plural count noun
for several reasons. There are now many more women in the various
US armed forces and this presents gender-related difficulties in
finding suitable terms for individuals ("serviceman" doesn't work
any longer). More significantly, it's been difficult to find an
inclusive term for a single member of the combined services -
soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and so on. "Serviceperson" or
"member of the armed forces" hardly trip off the tongue. The US
Department of Defense likes "servicemember" but that works only in
bureaucratese, not in news headlines or everyday speech. Though
"trooper" is available in theory, it's restricted in American usage
mainly to a member of the state police, and otherwise to a mounted
soldier in a cavalry regiment. "Warrior" has been popular, within
and outside the military, but has connotations that have rendered
it unpopular or unsuitable for some. "Combatant" is almost always
pejorative ("enemy combatant"). Not least, "troop" is usefully
short for fitting into headlines.

Despite wide unhappiness about it, there's no doubt that singular
"troop" has become a settled part of the language of the US media.
But I agree with John McWhorter that it will be some while, if
ever, before a member of the armed forces describes himself or
herself as a troop, not least because mutual pride and loyalties
within a service mean that specific terms such as soldier or airman
will continue to take precedence.

One troop too few?

disentailment and disimplicature

---

J: "But McWhorter was sort of correct that "troop" was not singular, except via colloquialization."

I don't think so.

For one, he was being a bit of a prescriptivist presumptuous one: "People don't use 'troop' in the singular". But they do! The OED records one use in 1832. Granted, it's scare-quoted. "The 'troop' was wounded. His name was Jim."

But surely scare quotes can be ignored.

Plus, it's like when with Kramer we discuss (slightly against Horn) about nand and nall. "These things don't exist in natural language", some claim. Except we use them, and we are not Martians.

So, it's like this karaoke CD I have. It's called "The One-Hand Clapping Company".

Surely, you may argue that if a troop, call it T, comprises just ONE person, called Jim. We can still say that Jim is a troop.

"Trooper" yes, but then, J uses -er for most things, or nster-, so J might just as well justify troopster.

----

No. The point is about troop.

It's like my friend Murphy. He thought he had discovered a refutation of Grice. For Grice, "some if not all" is totally good.

But Murphy provided the example:

"Some, if not all, of the cows were culled from the herd".

"What kind of a herd is that with no cows in it?", he asked.

Similarly, one may argue that if a troop comprises ONE TROOP (called Jim) and Jim gets killed, the troop ceases to exist.

The problem with collectives is colloquialisation, as J notes. "Police". Some people say, "Police are", some prefer "Police is".

I have NOT been collecting 'countable' usages of 'troop' as per headlines: "13 troops killed in [insert name of dangerous town]".

For Russell, who set the paradox of the class that belongs to no class, if we take, 'troop', seriously, as the name of a colletive ("Troop" with capital T, as it were), we may symbolise it as:

T = {t1, t2, t3, ... tn}

I.e. a 'troop' (Troop) is like a universal. The 'troops' that comprise them are also called 'troops', or 'troop'.

But Grice has,

"avoid ambiguity".

And the critics of usage were saying that:

"16 troops killed in [insert name of dangerous place]"

is ambiguous in that

a) a collective is NEVER killed. It's like when you say, "The Reppublica di San Marino went to a party".

b) MEMBERS of sets get killed.

Confront with "Batallion".

--- 16 battalions killed.

meaning??

If each batallion comprises, say, 10 human-beings, then 160 human beings were killed.

Note that in order to say, "16 battalions" were killed the WHOLE number of the members of EACH battalion should be killed, which seems quite a disgrace, as report of an event.

----- (You cannot say, strictly, that a "troop" (qua collective) was 'killed' unless its whole members -- the 'troops' with lower-case 't' -- are killed).

It's like that film with Esther Williams, "School of sirens".

"School" is a collective for 'fish' (cognate with 'shoal', not with Latin scuola).

Surely if you say, "he killed a school of sirens", it means he must have KILLED ALL of the individual sirens forming the school.

-----

But I would argue that if the school just comprises ONE siren (Esther Williams), one COULD, strictly (although perhaps misleading) say that "The school is showing her derriere", or something.

----

Collectives are on the whole a bother and should be avoided. "A pride of lions" is one of the most stupid constructions I've heard -- except I like it.

And recall what the Gricean collective for "Griceans" is because I haven't!

One troop too few? the disentailment

I've been considering:

"Two troops killed yesterday"

as a solecism, according to McWhorter.

I disagree!

--

If Grice spoke of disimplicature, we also may need to speak of disentailment, as it applies.

bug names -- or the fly that's not a fly: a griceian re-analysis

From World Wide Words,

"As a professional entomologist, I enjoyed your bit about insect common names."

"As an aid to my students over the last 35 years, I have informed them of
the rule you explain."

"Your piece also illustrates the hazards of common names divorced from the relevant scientific names."

"In my experience, a 'June bug' and 'tumblebug' are beetles and 'greenfly'
is a 'bug'."

"'Blackfly' is more interesting, since it can be used
for a true fly and also for an aphid/'bug' - its usage would be
clarified if the rule were followed in this case - 'black fly' for
the true biting fly, and 'blackfly' for the aphid."

But it's not.

-- Speranza, Bordighera

Congress is there

World Wide Words:

An AOL home-page link in its business section on 7 September, Jim
Tang noted, read

"Most Dangerous Places to Drive"

and was followed by this blurb:

"Residents of Washington D.C. are more likely to have a collusion than any other U.S. city."

That's unsurprising, Congress is there, after all.

One troop too many? the disimplicature

Back in 1832, the OED and M. Quinion report, 'troop' could be used singularly:

"As the wounded 'troop' was not much hurt, a sort of truce was proclaimed".

But John McWhorter ignored this when objecting to what he felt was a 'misuse' of "troop" -- on National Public Radio:

McWhorter said:

"Calling 20,000 soldiers '20,000 troops'

depersonalizes the soldiers as individuals, and makes a massive

number of living, breathing individuals sound like some kind of

mass or substance, like water or Jell-O, or some kind of freight."

McWhorter noted in particular that

"this usage of troops is only possible
in the plural. One cannot refer to a single soldier as a troop."


---- But one CAN, as per 1832 OED quote above.

McWhorter, ignoring that, adds:

"This means that mothers do not kiss their troop goodbye as he takes

off for Anbar Province. One will never encounter a troop learning

to use her prosthetic leg."

As Quinion notes, though, it will possibly be some while, if ever, "before a member of the armed forces describes himself or herself as a troop, not least because mutual pride and loyalties
within a service mean that specific terms such as "soldier" will continue to take precedence.

Plus, in French, they speak of a "troup" of actors, which is still a different (French) usage.

Speranza---Bordighera

bridges that span miles of river, travel to the moon, and predict patterns of population change.

World Wide Words: Harry Lake found a questionable sentence in a full-page advert in
the New Scientist of 28 August: "Calculus has made it possible to
build bridges that span miles of river, travel to the moon, and
predict patterns of population change." It had never occurred to
him that bridges were so versatile.

Beheadings in the Dessert

From World Wide Words:
The restaurant business," complained Darren Zanon, "is hard enough
without this kind of press." A report in a CNN blog on 2 September
quoted Terry Goddard, Arizona's Attorney General: "What is hurting
us right now economically are statements ... about how Arizona has
become so violent, that we are a place of fear, and we have
beheadings in the dessert."

Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales and one of Britain's top imams also joined the condemnation.

From World Wide Words
On Friday 3 September, Rodney Kennett tells us, the Daily Mail had
this in a news item: "Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, the leader of the
Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales and one of Britain's top
imams also joined the condemnation." Versatile clergyman ...

Officers were driving the car away - against force policy - when it crashed through two gardens. One was injured.

From World Wide Words:
On 3 September, Victor Dewsbery came across a news item on the BBC
website about the police seizing a high-performance car from a
suspected drunken driver. The story noted: "Officers were driving
the car away - against force policy - when it crashed through two
gardens. One was injured." Poor garden.

interoscular: mutual kissing

They interosculated: they kissed each other (in the mouth).
Bowler, Superior Person's Guide to English.

deltiology

the collection of postcards as a hobby-- Bowler, Superior Person's Guide to English.

Circumambagious

an implicature.

Bowler, "Superior Person's Guide to English"

catachresis: misapplication of a word

says Bowler, "Superior Person's Guide to English"

jumentous: is this word really necessary

Asks Bowler.

Police are trying to reunite precious World War I documents and jewellery found in a bin with their owner

From

Quinion:

"Maureen Whitaker mentioned a report from BBC News for Hampshire and
the Isle of Wight on 25 August: "Police are trying to reunite
precious World War I documents and jewellery found in a bin with
their owner.""

A cyclist rode past the historic Chatham house repainted fluorescent lime green and yellow, and has the town talking

A caption to a photograph in the Boston Globe last Thursday was
submitted by Walter Sheppard: "A cyclist rode past the historic
Chatham house repainted fluorescent lime green and yellow, and has
the town talking." For the avoidance of doubt, it is the colour
scheme of the repainted house that has the town talking, not the
cyclist.

A Montgomery County police officer has been charged with assault for hitting a suspect on the head with a baton after the suspect had fled

From Quinion:

"The long arm of the law? Leo Boivin tells us about a story from the
Washington Post last Saturday: "A Montgomery County police officer
has been charged with assault for hitting a suspect on the head
with a baton after the suspect had fled, officials said Friday.""

Is this word really necessary?

jumentous: "that smells like that of the urine of a horse".

--- by J. L. Speranza
--

M. Quinion reports in today's World Wide Words: "Is this word really necessary?"

"The word 'jumentous' is usually explained as meaning a smell like that of the
urine of a horse."

In 1992, in "The Superior Person's Second Book of Weird and Wondrous Words," Peter Bowler asked of it: "Is this word really necessary?"

----

Perhaps not obligatory, though?

---

Quinion adds: "'jumentous' comes from Latin "jumentum", which the Oxford
English Dictionary explains means a yoke-beast, from "jugum", a
yoke."

"Though this might reasonably include oxen, the Oxford Latin
Dictionary helpfully notes - somewhat surprisingly in view of its
origin - that in Roman times it usually meant horses or mules, not
cattle."

"Similarly, the obsolete English word "jument", from the
same source, could mean any beast of burden, but was most often
applied to a horse or donkey."

It was first used is a report of the symptoms of
a sick person, in 1801:


"No motion of the bowels; urine very scanty, red with a
jumentous and lateritious sediment."

The British Journal of Homoeopathy.

The word was deemed to be unfamiliar enough that it was defined in a footnote as relating to a working horse."


"By the end of the century", Quinion notes, "the word had become extremely rare."

Se quel guerrier io fossi

Conditionals and volitions: A griceian outlook

(Sorry I have been late in replying things and things -- I've been very busy -- with opera! Sort of ... --) Anyway, I am reading the libretto of "Aida" and this is wiki on it:

"Radames dreams both of gaining victory on the battle field and of Aida, the Ethiopian slave, with whom he is secretly in love (Radames: Se quel guerrier io fossi!...Celeste Aida - "Heavenly Aïda")".

---

Now, that sentence,

Se quel guerrier io fossi.

Translates as

If that warrior I were.

or in more idiomatic English

Were I that warrior!

----- Nonsense!

Consider the logical form:

if p, q

p ) q

-- where ) is the horseshoe.

Possibilities. When you find a protasis (or antecedent) without apodosis (or consequent), assume the apodosis, "I would be the happiest (UTTERER --male, woman, etc) in the world".

Why?

Conditionals and volition.


Radames says,

"If I were that warrior!"

----- This is the opening of the opera. But from the context, it is obvious that he WOULD enjoy being the warrior.

Surely, there is some AMBIGUITY. As things happen, just because he WILL eventually BE that warrior, he will be buried alive. So there is some sort of tragic irony involved.

Anyway.

Later!

A Griceian bagel

J. Goard: "cream cheese"/"cheese": "technically endocentric compounds but without full projection of the semantics of the head."

A Griceian bagel

Ben: "A bagel without cream cheese is a "dry" one. I don't know if it works at Starbucks, though. And I can't imagine what would happen if you asked for your bagel "wet.""

A Griceian bagel

Philipp: "No self-respecting New Yorker should ever order a "multigrain bagel"".

A Griceian bagel

R: A multigrain bagel, please.
B: Butter or cream cheese?
R: You are an arsehole.


Ellie:

"Am I the only one who finds the "Butter or Cheese?" question to be extremely bizarre in an entirely different way? I've never heard of anyone referring to "Cream Cheese" as just "Cheese," especially in the context of a bagel spread. If someone asks me if I want cheese on my bagel, then they'd better have some Cheddar on hand."

A Griceian bagel

Nathan Myers:

"Andy Bumatai, a comedian in Hawai'i, performed excellent skit involving a hotel guest and room service, containing the question,

"And would you like that cheeseburger with or without cheese?"".

A Griceian bagel

Ran Ari-Gur:

"I've frequently run into this sort of problem at Burger King. A few different interactions are possible. The one that works out well is:

Me: I'd like a veggie burger combo.
Person behind counter (PBC): Would you like cheese on that?
Me: No, thank you.
PBC: O.K., your total is . . .

Another common interaction is:

Me: I'd like a veggie burger combo.
PBC: Would you like a medium, or a large?
Me: A medium, please.
PBC: O.K., your total is . . .

which I don't like so much, because "medium" is bigger and more expensive than what they give me when they don't ask. Eventually I decided that the question must be intended as "Would you like to upgrade that from the default size to either 'medium' or 'large'?", but the last time I went, the interaction I had was this:

Me: I'd like a veggie burger combo.
PBC: Would you like a medium, or a large?
Me: No, thanks.
PBC: Wait, so you don't want a combo? You just want the sandwich?
Me: Oh, um, I'll have a medium, please.

Not all of us have graduate degrees in the pragmatics of fast-food ordering."

A Griceian bagel

Cliff Crawford: "In college one semester I worked at the deli counter in one of the dining halls. After making a sandwich for someone, I was always supposed to ask,

"Do you want chips, or a pickle?"

(with intonation indicating an either-or choice, though of course "neither" was a valid answer too)

"You would not believe the number of people who would answer, "Yes.""

A Griceian bagel

R: A multigrain bagel, please
B: Do you want butter or cheese?


Uly:

"What really irks me is that as far as I know, "plain" when talking about bagels has nothing to do with whether or not you have butter or cream cheese. It has to do with whether or not the bagel itself is covered with onions, or poppyseeds, or everything."

A Griceian bagel

Levi Montgomery: "I refuse to say "jo-jos." I say "…and some of those potatoes, too." They usually give them to me. Sometimes they say "You mean the jo-jos?" and I say "Whatever." One memorable time, however, the clerk attempted to make me actually name them, and I send "Yeah, never mind. Just the chicken." She knew perfectly well what I meant."

A Griceian bagel

Levi Montgomery: "I refuse to say "jo-jos." I say "…and some of those potatoes, too." They usually give them to me. Sometimes they say "You mean the jo-jos?" and I say "Whatever." One memorable time, however, the clerk attempted to make me actually name them, and I send "Yeah, never mind. Just the chicken." She knew perfectly well what I meant."

A Griceain bagel

-- A plain multigrain bagel, please.
-- Butter or cheese?
--

Theodore:

"the polite answer is: "I'm sorry, but you've presented me with a false dichotomy.""

A Griceian bagel

4andyman:

"The definition of "plain" is not universal in all restaurant situations. It's better that the barista aim for clarification of an order instead of risking getting the order wrong."

"Right. In New England, at least when I was growing up, a "regular" coffee came with cream in it."

A Griceain bagel

TM:

"I assumed that the question was

"Do you want BUTTER or CHEESE?" (rise-fall rise-fall)

"with the presupposition that one or the other is wanted."

"I don't think she would have flipped her lid at the innocuous "Do you want butter or cheese?" (straight rise, no presupposition)."

A Griceian bagel

P. Byrne: "I witnessed a similar incident while waiting to be served at the railway station cafe in Cambridge, England. The gentleman in front of me, whom I guessed to be an academic type, asked for a coffee and received the reply."

Normal or decaf?

"He refused to make a choice and insisted for several minutes that he just wanted "coffee".

A Griceian bagel

MJ: "Maybe she felt as though she was being confronted with a "Are you still beating your wife?"-type question."

A Griceian bagel

MJ: "Maybe she felt as though she was being confronted with a "Are you still beating your wife?"-type question."

A Griceian bagel

Richard: "If [Dr. Rosenthal] [were] such a stickler for correct English, "I want my multigrain bagel" would have been incorrect as she was at that time (and is likely still) not in possession of any multigrain bagels."

A Griceian bagel

Ginger Yellow: "This woman [Dr. Rosenthal, if you must] is clearly being obnoxious. They do "understand what a plain multigrain bagel" is. By your own words, you did not ask for a "plain multigrain bagel". You asked for a "multigrain bagel"."

A Griceian bagel

Mark P: "I can think of a lot of reasons to get mad about customer service these days, but I'm having a hard time with this one. Isn't in your best interest to make sure the person behind the counter knows exactly what you want? I suspect something else was going on. Or perhaps both customer and server are (metaphorically) arseholes."

A Griceian bagel

J. Byer: "Wow. Grice's maxims are excellent, but there's a debater's principle of charity that says we owe it to our fellows to strive to understand what they mean in light of their interests not our own."

A Griceian bagel

R: A plain multigrain bagel.
B: Do you want cheese or butter on that?
---

"Dr. Rosenthal refused on Gricean grounds to answer."

A Griceian bagel

From Liberman's blog post:

Me: And a cinnamon raisin bagel, please.
Barista: Do you want butter or cream cheese on that?
Me: No thanks.
Barista: You want it toasted?
Me: Nope.

A Griceian bagel

Gricean bagel rage

Rosenthal, at Starbucks, NYC:

-- A toasted multigrain bagel, please

-- Do you want butter or cheese?

--- (silence). You are an arsehole.

-------- Cops intervene

Rosenthal's point: "it would be otiose to have to specify what you do NOT want".

--

Comments on Liberman's blog --

Liberman writes (adapted)

"When Grice drafted his maxims for cooperative conversation, he didn't have in mind that we should get upset when people violate them."

Didn't he?

"On the contrary, the whole idea was to use apparent violations as the basis for reasoning about conversational implicatures, the things that people obviously mean but don't literally say. Still, people do get upset about all aspects of other people's language use, and it's common to object to redundancy, as in "ATM machine""

---

Well, it's more object to 'overinformativeness', right? The category of Quantity (which Grice retrieved humoristically from Kant --. No 'avoid redundacy', really.

Lieberman:

"— though members of what William Safire used to call the Squad Squad rarely get as upset as the anonymous "pilotless drone" man did ("Is it sinking into your thick skull, you high school drop-out?", 2/7/2007)."

"It's even rarer for usage disputes to escalate to the point where police intervention is required. But I've now gotten a dozen emails drawing my attention to a recent linguistic fracas where the cops were asked to rule on a matter involving conversational implicature. According to J. Doyle, R. Rosenberg and A. Karni, "Grammar stickler: Starbucks booted me", N.Y. Post 8/16/2010: "Starbucks' strange vernacular finally drove a customer nuts. L. Rosenthal, a college English prof from Manhattan, said 3 cops forcibly ejected her from an Upper West Side Starbucks yesterday morning after she got into a dispute with a counterperson — make that barista — for refusing to place her order by the coffee chain's rules. Rosenthal, who is in her early 60s, asked for

A toasted multigrain bagel, please.

— and she became enraged when the barista at the franchise, on Columbus Avenue at 86th Street, followed up by inquiring,

Do you want butter or cheese?

"I just wanted a multigrain bagel," she told The Post. "I refused to say 'without butter or cheese.' When you go to Burger King,

You don't have to list the six things you do NOT want.

"Linguistically, it's stupid. And I'm a stickler for correct English."

Let's stipulate that the question of when and how customers should have to specify what they don't want is not a matter of grammar, as such, and go on to learn more about what happened on that fateful West Side morning. Yesterday's breakfast-bagel tussle heated up when the barista told the prickly prof that he wouldn't serve her unless she specified whether she wanted a schmear of butter or cheese — or neither.

"I yelled, 'I want my multigrain bagel!' " Rosenthal said.

"The barista said, 'You're not going to get anything unless you say butter or cheese!' " But Rosenthal, on principle, refused to back down. "I didn't even want the bagel anymore," she said.

The bagel brouhaha escalated until the manager called cops, and responding officers ordered her to leave, threatening to arrest her if she went back inside, she said.

"It was very humiliating to be thrown out, and all I did was ask for a bagel," recalled Rosenthal, who said she holds a Ph.D. from Columbia.

"If you don't use their language, they refuse to serve you. They don't understand what a plain multigrain bagel is."

"There's some evidence in the story that possible violations of the maxims of quantity and manner were not the only points at issue."

A Starbucks employee who witnessed the incident blamed Rosenthal.

"She would not answer. It was a reasonable question," the worker said.

"She called [the barista] an a- -hole."

Most of those who have sent me links to this story have been disappointed that the dispute was not over the nomenclature of different coffee serving sizes, as featured in Paul Rudd's "Venti is twenty" rant from the movie Role Models:

Or Dave Barry's classic Ask Mister Language Person column ("Latte lingo: Raising a pint at Starbucks", 11/30/2004):

"We begin today with a disturbing escalation in the trend of coffee retailers giving stupid names to cup sizes."

"As you know, this trend began several years ago when Starbucks (motto: "There's one opening right now in your basement") decided to call its cup sizes "Tall" (meaning "not tall," or ''small"), "Grande" (meaning "medium") and "Venti" (meaning, for all we know, "weasel snot").

"Unfortunately, we consumers, like moron sheep, started actually USING these names. Why? If Starbucks decided to call its toilets "AquaSwooshies," would we go along with THAT? Yes! Baaa!"

"Recently, at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Death March, Mister Language Person noticed that a Starbuck's competitor, Seattle's Best Coffee (which also uses "Tall" for small and "Grande" for medium) is calling ITS large cup size — get ready — "Grande Supremo."

"Yes. And as Mister Language Person watched in horror, many customers — seemingly intelligent, briefcase-toting adults — actually used this term, as in, "I'll take a Grande Supremo.""

"Listen, people: You should never, ever have to utter the words "Grande Supremo" unless you are addressing a tribal warlord who is holding you captive and threatening to burn you at the stake."

"JUST SAY YOU WANT A LARGE COFFEE, PEOPLE."

"Because if we let the coffee people get away with this, they're not going to stop, and some day, just to get a lousy cup of coffee, you'll hear yourself saying""

"I'll have a Mega Grandissimaximo Giganto de Humongo-Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong decaf."

"And then you will ask for the key to the AquaSwooshie. And when THAT happens, people, the terrorists will have won.

"In a comment on that 2004 post, Stefano Taschini expressed the opinion that the whole thing is really beside the point, because, 'I believe there must have been a small mistype: technically, a warm liquid that you ingest in quantities exceeding half a liter is "stock" not "coffee". In English, I think, the word infusion would also be appropriate (though I have to say that I myself am fond of the American-style coffee-bean-derived liquid, whatever you choose to call the substance and its various sizes). [Update — more discussion at the Economist's Johnson blog, and LOTS more discussion at Metafilter. Current counts on Google News suggest that the Starbucks v. Rosenthal story is getting more uptake than (say) the Marc Hauser story.]

Camp helps burn survivors

From Quinion's World Wide Words: "a headline, in the Cincinnati Enquirer of Ohio last Sunday (sent in by Brian Halsall), could be taken two ways: "Camp helps burn survivors"".

Cfr. Chomsky,

"Flying planes can be dangerous."
"Sue is eager to please"

ERP-waveforms starting at the presentation of the disambiguating adverb for dialogues containing violations (grey)

The caption for fig. 2 in that horrific study on Gricean brainwaves:

"ERP-waveforms starting at the presentation of the disambiguating adverb for dialogues containing violations (grey) and neutral dialogues (black) on a frontal (Fz) and a posterior electrode (Pz)."

Enough to have Grice's brain ...

It IS understood: they were Groeningen (in the Netherlands) undergrads, who did it for some course credit AND money.

Electrode placement (triangle indicates nose of participant)

This is the caption for fig. 1 of "Gricean brainwaves" study. Grice would be horrified! It is understood: they were Groeningen undergrads -- hence the nose. And if you believe this: they took course credit AND money!

Grice's Brain

http://palm.mindmodeling.org/cogsci2010/papers/0368/paper0368.pdf

A study of what happens in your brain -- and Grice's, we expect -- when you witness a violation to one of his maxims. It was written by Dutch scholars. Enjoy!

Formal Grice

By Roger Bishop Jones for The Grice Club.

I now have a chapter on Grice in my projected tome of formal analysis, which is populated at present only by material on vacuous names and a reference to the material on Aristotle which connects with Grice and Code.

These are not particularly outstanding examples of Grice's work, and it would be nice to have a formal treatment of some more important part of Grice's work, of which perhaps the most important if it could be done, would be something from the William James lectures.

Does JL or anyone else know of any other attempts to give a formal treatment to material from the James lectures, or to any other important part of Grice's philosophy?

RBJ

Grice on Propositions

By Roger Bishop Jones for The Grice Club

I'm interested to know more about what Grice has said on "propositions" (in connection with "the eternal city").

I think of propositions as the meanings of sentences, and Grice certainly was interested in meanings, and in something he called "central meaning", by way of distinguishing what is "said" from what is "implicated".

He seems to have been reluctant to call these central meanings propositions, and I wonder why that was, and whether there are other parts of Grice's writings which cast light on his attitude towards use of the word "proposition", or indeed on his views about propositions.

In relation to "central meanings" if I may take that for a moment to be a Griceian surrogate for propositions, is it safe to say that was seeking to elucidate a single distinction, rather than to explore what might possible be multiple related distinctions?

There do seem to be multiple ways in which one might approach the analysis of what sentences mean.  The one I have seen in Grice might be said to approach "central meaning" by way of implicature.  If we can identify the implicatures and put them aside (for this purpose), then what we are left with is "central meaning".

Two other approaches are:

1. by consideration of when reported speech is accurate or misleading.
(for reported speech does not replicate how something is said or what it implicates, but must convey what is said and hence depends upon the claim as reported have the same content, conveying the same proposition, as the original)

2. by considering the content of explicit discussions about meanings.

We have there three (and there will probably be more) approaches to pinning down the notion of proposition which are not too far removed from Grice's method of philosophising, (though not so close to how Carnap might think about this), and its not obvious that these three approaches will yield the same answers.  A pluralistic Carnap* might embrace this situation readily, and might start by saying that propositions as a part of the semantics of a language, are a technical device the details of which might vary from one language to another.

Is there anything in Grice to suggest that either his notion of "central meaning" or his notion of proposition (if he had one), might not be absolute, and might be best analysed as more than once related concept?

RBJ

Boy chases away man who shot his dad with kitchen knife

Did the boy know the knife was loaded?

What is this thing called, love?

Bimbo actress: "What's that in the road? A head?"

Director: "No! The line is, 'what's that in the road ahead?' Get it right!"

Bimbo actress: "What is this thing called, love?"

Director: "No, no, no! The line is, 'what is this thing called love?' Honestly, Phillip! I can't go on with this."

(c) Benny Hill

A Miami man is behind bars after he tried to steal a woman's baby that he didn't even know and ended up punching the infant in the face

Apparently, nbcmiami has an issue needing an editor. From another article on the same site with Todd Wright's byline:

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Man-Punched-Infant-While-Trying-to-Stea l -It-98275349.html

"A Miami man is behind bars after he tried to steal a woman's baby that he didn't even know and ended up punching the infant in the face."

I think I could do Todd's job with one arm tied behind my back of writing news stories.

Boy chases away man who shot his dead with kitchen knife

Boy with kitchen knife chases away the man who shot the boy's father.
Boy with knife repels his father's gun-wielding assailant.
Assailant shoots man, is chased away by the victim's son who was armed with a knife.

This is trickier than at first one imagines.

Boy chases away man who shot his dad with kitchen knife

The dad the man the boy chased shot lived.

The Dangling-Participle Disimplicature: "Man chases away man who shot his dad with kitchen knife"

Boy chases away man who shot his dad with kitchen knife

Boy chases away man who shot his dad with kitchen knife

I'm glad Kramer taught me how to add illustrations to this blog.

Boy chases away man who shot his dad with kitchen knife.

Boy chases away man who shot his dad with kitchen knife

"A Broward dad is lucky to be alive after he was shot"

----- but not "to death". There is 'shoot' and 'shoot to death'. I wonder how Chomsky would analyse the phrase, 'to death'. It bored me "to tears". "I'm bored to death". "It bores me to death". He was shot 'to death' seems to be a different use of 'to death'. But surely, perhaps, by following, "be as informative as is required", one need to have added, 'not to death' in the headline:

Boy chases away who shot his dad not to death with kitchen knife.

---- The implicature of 'dad' is that he is alive. It would be TOO frivolous, even for a journalist, to refer to a dead father as a 'dad', I expect.

Plus, it's a 'kid' who can call a 'dad' dad -- not a grown up, we expect, journalist.

"during a botched robbery attempt."

As opposed to a non-botched success.

"And he has his 9-year-old son to thank for it. Police are searching for a suspect who shot Rodney Shepard in front of his three sons"

Is 'three' necessary? I feel I need to know their ages. It seems we have a little hero here -- but what if the other sons were 16 and 21? I would feel that the OLDER sons should have done something, rather. Plus, perhaps it was clumsy of the 9-year older to 'chase away' the shooter rather than, dunno, knocked him down?

"Monday evening in Plantation."

Shouldn't this be "a" plantation? Strawson notes that sometimes, common nouns ('congress') grow capitals ("the Congress") only to drop the 'definite iota operator' ('the'): "Congress". How named this plantation Plantation? Is that lack of imagination or what?

"The shooting happened shortly before 5 p.m. Monday at the home on the 4500 block of Northwest 3rd Court. According to police,Shepard and his three boys, 8-year-old twins and a 9-year-old son, were confronted by a family acquaintance outside the house."

I'm relieved the hero was the eldest.

"As they talked to the acquaintance, known as "Dred" or "Dred O," a Mercedes pulled into the driveway and a man with a handgun jumped out of the car and approached them.
The gunman ordered Shepard into his house and began to search his pockets for valuables."

-- money basically.

"Shepard and the gunman began to struggle, and Shepard wound up shot in the leg."

-- wound up with a wound, literally.

"The 9-year-old got a kitchen knife in attempt to ward off the gunman, who fled the scene. Dred also fled the scene." But dread FILLED the scene.

Disjunctions and Desires

--- I'm elaborating on this but a few things connect (with J's excellent remark that 'desires' are not discrete, while disjunctions are).

---

"indeterminacy" of conversational implicata (online "Logic and Conversation). You gotta love Grice for stating that, 'by uttering 'He hasn't been to prison yet', he meant that he is potentially dishonest, or that his colleagues are trecherous or that his aunt is a criminal and he should be him a visit before too long or ...'.

"and"-reduction. It has been claimed (by Harnish) that the 'oddity' of:

"He likes peaches-and-cream"
-- Therefore, he likes peaches"

--- (or 'desires') is to be explained as a breach of 'informativeness' (rather than truthiness -- cfr. The invention of truthiness).

---

This may have some odd consequences -- but perhaps explained implicatural. "Smith is bisexual; ergo he is heterosexual and homosexual". "I desire a green shirt" "Therefore, I desire a yellow/blue shirt". Or something.

Grouse (Pronounced 'Grice')

Good Morning One, Good Morning All
FXstreet.com The Forex Market
If you didn't bag the odd grouse ( pronounced 'grice' by the gentry dontcha know), then tomorrow is the second day of the season.... Failing that you might ...
See all stories on this topic »

Implicature and "Implicature"

From online source:

-----

"unintended implications". Rather: 'unintended 'implicatures''. As I like to say, a good thing about an implicature, unlike a child, is that an unwanted implicature is NOT one, but an unwanted child is STILL a child.

---


You've seen them on billboards, church marquees, and bathroom stalls: a pair of renegade quotation marks that ultimately results in an unfortunate, unintentional innuendo. You might think that a book comprised solely of photos of publicly displayed punctuation gaffes, accompanied by witty commentary, might get old after awhile. Well, you would be wrong.

The Book of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, based on the popular blog created by Bethany Keeley, features reader-contributed photos of these superfluous punctuation faux pas. The book's organized into categories like "At Work," "Social Graces," and "In the Bathroom," and Keeley provides funny commentary without being overly snarky. Even though the book repeats a different shade of the same joke over and over, the variations manage to seem wholly original when applied to different contexts. What self-respecting consumer of words could help from giggling after seeing a billboard that reads:


"Jesus" is Coming


Or, what about a customer feedback box from a national restaurant chain (I'm looking at you, Taco Bell) with a sign proclaiming:


"We Care." Please Let Us Know How You Feel


English is complex -- so what's the big deal if these avant-garde painters of language take the laws of grammar into their own hands and use the world's billboards, Post-it Notes, and sandwich boards as their canvases?

This is the big deal: Rules are rules, folks. Just like stop signs, speed limits, and laws that prohibit you from marrying your cousins, the regulations placed on the use of punctuation were created to benefit society as a whole. They exist so you don't unwittingly make fun of your own products, accidentally give the impression you're not being honest, or unintentionally dispute the existence of "the Lord." (See what I did there?)

Some might argue that only privileged people with soft hands have the time or energy to poke fun at the misuse of punctuation. Perhaps these bold folks going hog-wild with the quotation marks simply have more pressing things to worry about. Maybe so. They're trying to get people to buy their "soup," attend their "church," or simply just "flush" the toilet. They want emphasis and don't care how they go about achieving it.

Sorry, you syntax rebels, I'm taking the hardliner approach. We've got punctuation for a reason, and it's to fine-tune the sentiment behind our communication. Anyone with the wherewithal to own a business, buy billboard space, or design a product label should know better. Or use a proofreader. Google it. Something! If you break the rules, prepare to pay the price. (Which is being publicly shamed in this book.)

With that said, Keeley is fairly gentle. She focuses more energy poking fun at the absurdity of the unintended implications and less calling out the language skills of the perpetrators. Read it and chuckle with a good conscience, and think: Oh, that zany language of ours. Always up to "something. "

Boy chases away man who shot his dad with kitchen knife

From Quinion:

"The headline on the website of The Daily Caller of Miami - noted by
Susie Elins on Monday - seems to imply a multifunction weapon: "Boy
chases away man who shot his dad with kitchen knife.""

Embedded implicature: "Archeologist shoots dead rampaging polar bear"

Quinion, today:

"A similar confusion surrounds a headline that Don Wilkes found on
the website of the Vancouver Province on 5 August: "Archeologist
shoots dead rampaging polar bear"".

Embedded Implicature: "Police chase man killed by train" (BBC)

From Quinion's World Wide Words, today:

"The news ticker on the BBC site on Tuesday read "Police chase man
killed by train". This was not a report of post-mortem athleticism:
the first three words make up a noun phrase - the police chased a
man, who was then killed by a train. Thanks to everyone who sent
that in."

The Category of Truthiness

Further to Kramer's points on 'the invention of lying', etc.:

From the wiki:
"In satire, truthiness is a "truth" that a person claims to know intuitively "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.[1]

American television comedian Stephen Colbert revealed this definition[2] as the subject of a segment called "The Wørd" during the pilot episode of his political satire program The Colbert Report on October 17, 2005. By using this as part of his routine, Colbert satirized the misuse of appeal to emotion and "gut feeling" as a rhetorical device in contemporaneous socio-political discourse.[3] He particularly applied it to U.S. President George W. Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.[4] Colbert later ascribed truthiness to other institutions and organizations, including Wikipedia.[5] Colbert has sometimes used a quasi-Latin version of the term, "Veritasiness".[6] For example, in Colbert's "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" the word "Veritasiness" can be seen on the banner above the eagle on the operation's seal.

Truthiness, although a "stunt word", was named Word of the Year for 2005 by the American Dialect Society and for 2006 by Merriam-Webster.[7][8] However, linguist and OED consultant Benjamin Zimmer[2][9] pointed out that the word truthiness[10] already had a history in literature and appears in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), as a derivation of truthy, and The Century Dictionary, both of which indicate it as rare or dialectal, and to be defined more straightforwardly as "truthfulness, faithfulness".[2]
Adoption of the term by Colbert
Colbert chose the word truthiness just moments before taping the premiere episode of The Colbert Report on October 17, 2005, after deciding that the originally scripted word – "truth" – was not absolutely ridiculous enough. "We're not talking about truth, we're talking about something that seems like truth – the truth we want to exist", he explained.[11] He introduced his definition in the first segment of the episode, saying: "Now I'm sure some of the 'word police', the 'wordinistas' over at Webster's are gonna say, 'Hey, that's not a word'. Well, anybody who knows me knows I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They're elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn't true. Or what did or didn't happen."[4]

When asked in an out-of-character interview with The Onion's A.V. Club for his views on "the 'truthiness' imbroglio that's tearing our country apart", Colbert elaborated on the critique he intended to convey with the word:[3]

Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word…
It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the President because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?…

Truthiness is 'What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.' It's not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There's not only an emotional quality, but there's a selfish quality.

During an interview on December 8, 2006 with Charlie Rose,[12] Colbert stated:

'I was thinking of the idea of passion and emotion and certainty over information. And what you feel in your gut, (as I said in the first Wørd we did, which was sort of a thesis statement of the whole show – however long it lasts – is that sentence, that one word), that's more important to, I think, the public at large, and not just the people who provide it in prime-time cable, than information.'
On his April 2, 2009 episode of the Colbert Report, Colbert added an addendum to the definition: a word so straight that it drives men wild.

Coverage by news media. After Colbert's introduction to truthiness, it quickly became widely used and recognized. Six days after, CNN's Reliable Sources featured a discussion of The Colbert Report by host Howard Kurtz, who played a clip of Colbert's definition.[13] On the same day, ABC's Nightline also reported on truthiness, prompting Colbert to respond by saying: "You know what was missing from that piece? Me. Stephen Colbert. But I'm not surprised. Nightline's on opposite me…"[14]

Within a few months of its introduction by Colbert, truthiness was discussed in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, CNN, MSNBC, the Associated Press, Editor & Publisher, Salon, The Huffington Post, Chicago Reader, CNET, and on ABC's Nightline, CBS's 60 Minutes, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.

The February 13, 2006 issue of Newsweek featured an article on The Colbert Report titled "The Truthiness Teller", recounting the career of the word truthiness since its popularization by Colbert.[10]

[edit] The New York Times coverage and usage
In its October 25, 2005 issue, eight days after the premiere episode of the Report, The New York Times ran its third article on The Colbert Report, "Bringing Out the Absurdity of the News".[15] The article specifically discussed the segment on "truthiness", although the Times misreported the word as "trustiness". In its November 1, 2005 issue, the Times ran a correction. On the next episode of the Report, Colbert took the Times to task for the error, pointing out, albeit incorrectly, that "trustiness" is "not even a word".[16]

In its December 25, 2005 issue, the New York Times again discussed "truthiness", this time as one of nine words that had captured the year's zeitgeist, in an article titled "2005: In a Word; Truthiness" by Jacques Steinberg. In crediting truthiness, Steinberg said, "the pundit who probably drew the most attention in 2005 was only playing one on TV: Stephen Colbert".[17]

In the January 22, 2006 issue, columnist Frank Rich used the term seven times, with credit to Colbert, in a column titled "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito",[18] to discuss Republican portrayals of several issues (including the Samuel Alito nomination, the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, and Jack Murtha's Vietnam War record). Rich emphasized the extent to which the word had quickly become a cultural fixture, writing, "The mock Comedy Central pundit Stephen Colbert's slinging of the word 'truthiness' caught on instantaneously last year precisely because we live in the age of truthiness." Editor & Publisher reported on Rich's use of "truthiness" in his column, saying he "tackled the growing trend to 'truthiness,' as opposed to truth, in the U.S."[19]

The New York Times published two letters on the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner, where Stephen Colbert was the featured guest, in its May 3, 2006 edition, under the headline "Truthiness and Power".[20]

Frank Rich referenced truthiness again in The New York Times in 2008, describing the strategy of John McCain's presidential campaign as being "to envelop the entire presidential race in a thick fog of truthiness."[21] Rich explained that the campaign was based on truthiness because "McCain, Sarah Palin and their surrogates keep repeating the same lies over and over not just to smear their opponents and not just to mask their own record. Their larger aim is to construct a bogus alternative reality so relentless it can overwhelm any haphazard journalistic stabs at puncturing it."[21] Rich also noted, "You know the press is impotent at unmasking this truthiness when the hardest-hitting interrogation McCain has yet faced on television came on 'The View'. Barbara Walters and Joy Behar called him on several falsehoods, including his endlessly repeated fantasy that Palin opposed earmarks for Alaska. Behar used the word “lies” to his face."[21]

Widespread recognition. A church sign stating, "Truthiness and Consequences", taken March 10, 2007, in Cape Coral, FloridaUsage of "truthiness" continued to proliferate in media, politics, and public consciousness. On January 5, 2006, etymology professor Anatoly Liberman began an hour-long program on public radio by discussing truthiness and predicting that it would be included in dictionaries in the next year or two.[22] His prediction seemed to be on track when, the next day, the American Dialect Society announced that "truthiness" was its 2005 Word of the Year, and the website of the Macmillan English Dictionary featured truthiness as its Word of the Week a few weeks later.[23] Truthiness was also selected by The New York Times as one of nine words that captured the spirit of 2005. Global Language Monitor, which tracks trends in languages, named truthiness the top television buzzword of 2006, and another term Colbert coined with reference to truthiness, wikiality, as another of the top ten television buzzwords of 2006, the first time two words from the same show have made the list. [24] [25]

On January 1, 2007, Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan released its annual list of words it wants banned from the English language. "Truthiness" was among them, along with other words like "awesome" and celebrity couple portmanteaus like "Brangelina" and "TomKat".[26] In response, on January 8, 2007 Colbert stated that Lake Superior State University was an "attention-seeking second-tier state university".[27] The 2008 List of Banished Words restored "truthiness" to formal usage, in response to the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike.[28]

American Dialect Society's Word of the Year. On January 6, 2006, the American Dialect Society announced that "truthiness" was selected as its 2005 Word of the Year. The Society described its rationale as follows:

In its 16th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted truthiness as the word of the year. First heard on The Colbert Report, a satirical mock news show on the Comedy Central television channel, truthiness refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. As Stephen Colbert put it, "I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart."[7]

Apparently after realizing that "truthiness" was found in the Oxford English Dictionary, the Society later changed the wording of this press release on their website, from "First heard on The Colbert Report" to "Recently popularized on the Colbert Report".

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. On December 10, 2006 the Merriam-Webster Dictionary announced that "truthiness" was selected as its 2006 Word of the Year on Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year, based on a reader poll, by a 5–1 margin over the second-place word google.[8] "We're at a point where what constitutes truth is a question on a lot of people's minds, and truth has become up for grabs", said Merriam-Webster president John Morse. "'Truthiness' is a playful way for us to think about a very important issue."[29] However, despite winning Word of the Year, the word does not appear in the 2006 edition of the Merriam-Webster English Dictionary. In response to this omission, during "The Wørd" segment on December 12, 2006 Colbert issued a new page 1344 for the tenth edition of the Merriam Webster dictionary that featured "truthiness". To make room for the definition of "truthiness," including a portrait of Colbert, the definition for the word "try" was removed with Colbert stating "Sorry, try. Maybe you should have tried harder." He also sarcastically told viewers to 'not' download the new page and 'not' glue it in the new dictionary in libraries and schools.

New York Times crossword puzzle. In the June 14, 2008 edition of The New York Times, the word was featured as 1-across in the crossword puzzle. Colbert mentioned this during the last segment on the June 18 episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and declared himself the "King of the Crossword".[30][31]

BBC "portrait of the decade". In December 2009, the BBC online magazine asked its readers to nominate suggestions of things to be included on a poster which would represent important events in the 2000s, divided into five different categories: "People", "Words", "News", "Objects" and "Culture". Suggestions were sent in and a panel of five independent experts shortened each category to what they saw as the 20 most important. Among the nominations selected in the "Words" category was "Truthiness". As a result, the word "Truthiness" appeared in the poster.[32]

Use in political and social commentary. James Frey controversy
The Chicago Tribune published an editorial in its January 16, 2006 issue titled "The Truthiness Hurts", crediting the rise of truthiness as serendipitously providing an apt description of the Oprah Book Club controversy over James Frey's fictionalized "memoir," A Million Little Pieces.[33] Truthiness was also used to describe the controversy over the factual accuracy of Frey's book by USA Today in its January 15, 2006 issue,[34] by several other publications including The New York Times, and by the television news program Nightline on its October 23 and January 26 editions.[35]

Oprah Winfrey also discussed truthiness with Frank Rich on her show, in reference to the Frey controversy and the column "Truthiness 101" Rich had recently published in the New York Times.[36] They also mentioned Colbert's role in making the word "truthiness".[37]

On January 27, MSNBC ran a commentary titled "Oprah strikes a blow for truthiness: Do facts really matter? Ask Winfrey, James Frey or Stephen Colbert", making the case that Winfrey's about-face on Frey's book was a "small (and belated) but bold nudge back out of the proud halls of truthiness", but also opportunistic and too little too late.[38]

In the Canadian Parliament. In 2006, Liberal Party of Canada leadership contender Ken Dryden used truthiness as an extensive theme in a speech in the House of Commons. The speech dealt critically with the current government's Universal Child Care Plan.[39] Dryden defined truthiness as "something that is spoken as if true that one wants others to believe is true, that said often enough with enough voices orchestrated in behind it, might even sound true, but is not true."

The transcript of all debates in the House (Hansard) is made available in both official languages; the translators into French chose to render "truthiness" as fausse vérité ("false truth").[39]

Alleged snubbing by the Associated Press, and Colbert's response
The Associated Press reported on the American Dialect Society's selection of truthiness as the Word of the Year,[40] including the following comments by one of the voting linguists:

Michael Adams, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in lexicology, said "truthiness" means "truthy, not facty". "The national argument right now is, one, "Who's got the truth?" and, two, "Who's got the facts?"", he said. "Until we can manage to get the two of them back together again, we're not going to make much progress."

On each of the first four episodes of the Report after the selection of truthiness as Word of the Year, Colbert lamented that news reports neglected to acknowledge him as the source of the word. On the first of these episodes, he added Michael Adams to his "On Notice" board, and Associated Press reporter Heather Clark, the author of the article, to his "Dead to Me" board.[41] On the third of these episodes, he ranked the AP at the top of the "Threat-Down",[42] one of few entries ever to gain the number one spot in place of bears. On the following episode he called Adams and asked for an apology. Though Adams never apologized, Colbert "accepted" his "apology", but failed to take him "off notice".

Associated Press response to Colbert
On January 13, the first day after the four-day run of criticism of the AP on the Report, the AP ran a story about The Colbert Report being upset about being snubbed by the AP, in an article titled "Colbert: AP the biggest threat to America".[43] As he has in the past, Colbert remained in character in an interview for the story, and used it to further the political satire of truthiness; excerpts of the story are:

"…When an AP story about the designation sent coast to coast failed to mention Colbert, he began a tongue-in-cheek crusade, not unlike the kind his muse Bill O'Reilly might lead in all seriousness."

"'It's a sin of omission…' Stephen Colbert told the AP on Thursday….'It's like Shakespeare still being alive and not asking him what Hamlet is about,' he said."

"The Oxford English Dictionary has a definition for 'truthy' dating back to the 1800s….'The fact that they looked it up in a book just shows that they don't get the idea of truthiness at all,' Stephen Colbert said Thursday. 'You don't look up truthiness in a book, you look it up in your gut.'"

"Though slight, the difference of Colbert's definition and the OED's is essential. It's not your typical truth, but, as The New York Times wrote, 'a summation of what [Colbert] sees as the guiding ethos of the loudest commentators on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.'"

"Colbert, who referred on his program to the AP omission as a 'journalistic travesty,' said Thursday that it was similar to the much-criticized weapons of mass destruction reporting leading up to the Iraq War. 'Except,' he said, 'people got hurt this time.'"

On January 14, Clark herself responded in an article titled "Exclusive 'News'—I'm dead to Stephen Colbert".[44] She furthered the rise of "truthiness" in published English in conceding, "Truthiness be told, I never had seen The Colbert Report until my name graced its 'Dead to Me' board this week….But I will say that I watched Colbert's show for the first time…It was funny. And that's not just truthy. That's a fact."

Arianna Huffington
On January 31, 2006, Arianna Huffington used truthiness on the Huffington Post.[45] Huffington later appeared as a guest on the March 1, 2006, episode of The Colbert Report. She challenged Colbert on his claim that he had invented the word truthiness. During the interview, Colbert declared, "I'm not a truthiness fanatic; I'm truthiness' father." Huffington corrected him, citing Wikipedia, that he had merely "popularized" the term. Regarding her source, Colbert responded: "Fuck Them!"[46]

President George W. Bush
At the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, Colbert, the featured guest, described President Bush's thought processes using the definition of truthiness. Editor and Publisher used truthiness to describe Colbert's criticism of Bush, in an article published the same day titled "Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner—President Not Amused?" E&P reported that the "blistering comedy 'tribute' to President Bush… left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close" and that many people at the dinner "looked a little uncomfortable at times, perhaps feeling the material was a little too biting—or too much speaking 'truthiness' to power".[47] E&P reported a few days later that its coverage of Colbert at the dinner drew "possibly its highest one-day traffic total ever", and published a letter to the editor asserting that "Colbert brought truth wrapped in truthiness".[48] On the same weekend, The Washington Post and others also referenced this.[49][50][51] Writing six months later in a column titled "Throw The Truthiness Bums Out", New York Times columnist Frank Rich called Colbert's after-dinner speech a "cultural primary" and christened it the "defining moment" of the United States' 2006 midterm elections.[52][53]

Charles Krauthammer
Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer brought the term up in a discussion about President Obama on the show Fox News All-Stars in June 2010, saying:

What we see here is conditional truthiness. When the administration needs to say, oh, we knew how bad it was, it says it, and when it needs to say we had no idea how bad it was, it says it. It depends when it needs it; it’ll invent a new truth.[54]
[edit] See also
Wikiality – another word coined by Colbert
Doublethink
Newspeak
Rhetoric
Noble lie
Factoid


1.^ Dick Meyer (December 12, 2006). "The Truth of Truthiness". CBS News. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/12/opinion/meyer/main2250923.shtml. Retrieved December 14, 2006.
2.^ a b c Zimmer, Benjamin. "Language Log: Truthiness or Trustiness?". http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002586.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
3.^ a b Nathan Rabin (January 26, 2006). "Interview: Stephen Colbert". A.V. Club. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
4.^ a b "The Colbert Report: Videos: The Word (Truthiness)". October 17, 2005. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/24039/october-17-2005/the-word---truthiness. Retrieved January 2, 2009.
5.^ The Colbert Report / Comedy Central recording of The WØRD "Wikiality", Comedy Central, July 31, 2006.
6.^ http://firedoglake.com/2006/06/05/a-stop-on-the-veritasiness-tour-2006/
7.^ a b "Truthiness Voted 2005 Word of the Year by American Dialect Society" (PDF). http://www.americandialect.org/Words_of_the_Year_2005.pdf. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
8.^ a b "Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year 2006". Merriam-Webster. http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/06words.htm. Retrieved December 8, 2006.
9.^ "Benjamin Zimmer homepage". http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
10.^ a b Marc Peyser (February 13, 2006). "The Truthiness Teller". Newsweek. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11182033/site/newsweek/. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
11.^ Adam Sternbergh (October 16, 2006). "Stephen Colbert Has America by the Ballots". New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/news/politics/22322/index1.html. Retrieved October 27, 2007.
12.^ Charlie Rose (December 8, 2006), "A conversation with comedian Stephen Colbert". Retrieved on August 14, 2008.
13.^ . It was also used September 23, 2008 by CNN's American Morning by John Roberts. Howard Kurtz (transcript) (October 23, 2005). "CNN Reliable Sources". CNN. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/23/rs.01.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
14.^ "[D1RT: stephen colbert on..."]. http://www.iseeseveralflaws.com/dirt/archives/000426.html. Retrieved September 19, 2008.
15.^ Allesandra Stanley (October 25, 2005). "Bringing Out the Absurdity of the News". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30A16F83B5B0C768EDDA90994DD404482. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
16.^ Many dictionaries (e.g. American Heritage, Merriam-Webster, New Oxford Dictionary of English, etc.) offer definitions for trustiness.
17.^ Steinberg, Jacques (December 25, 2005). "2005: In a Word: Truthiness". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/weekinreview/25track.ready.html?ei=5090&en=0ad1e6ef6392c7da&ex=1293166800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1137484544-pMx4vqbEIRjCInvXH5mFzg. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
18.^ Rich, Frank (January 22, 2006). "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/opinion/22rich.html?_r=1. Retrieved December 26, 2008.
19.^ "'NY Times' Frank Rich Taking Book Leave". January 22, 2006. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001882874. Retrieved January 23, 2006.
20.^ Gloria D. Howard; William M. Phillian (May 3, 2006). "Truthiness and Power". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/opinion/l03colbert.html?ex=1149652800&en=be69d253b7aa626d&ei=5070. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
21.^ a b c Frank Rich (September 21, 2008). "Truthiness Stages a Comeback". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21rich.html. Retrieved September 21, 2008.
22.^ "Where Words Come From". January 5, 2006. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/programs/midmorning/listings/mm20060102.shtml. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
23.^ "Word of the Week Archive". http://www.macmillandictionary.com/New-Words/060213-truthiness.htm. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
24.^ ""Truthiness", "Wikiality" named TV words of year". Reuters. August 28, 2006. http://www.tbs.com/stories/story/0,,83376,00.html. Retrieved November 25, 2008.
25.^ "'Truthiness' and 'Wikiality' Named Top Television Buzzwords of 2006 Followed by 'Katrina', 'Katie,' and 'Dr. McDreamy'". Global Language Monitor. August 27, 2006. http://www.languagemonitor.com/Telewords/. Retrieved August 28, 2006.
26.^ Lake Superior State University 2007 List of Banished Words
27.^ Colbert Report Episode 3001 (1/8/2006) overview
28.^ Lake Superior State University 2008 List of Banished Words
29.^ Adam Gorlick (December 8, 2006). "Colbert's 'truthiness' pronounced Word of the Year". AP/Houston Chronicle. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/4389349.html.
30.^ "Daily/Colbert – Crossword Puzzle" (video). Comedy Central. June 18, 2008. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=174004&title=daily/colbert-crossword-puzzle. Retrieved December 20, 2008.
31.^ Parker, Rex (June 14, 2008). "Saturday, Jun . 14, 2008". Rex Parker does the NYT crossword puzzle (personal blog). http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2008/06/saturday-jun-14-2008-brendan-emmett.html. Retrieved June 30, 2008.
32.^ "A portrait of the decade". BBC. December 14, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8406898.stm. Retrieved December 17, 2009.
33.^ Chicago Tribune editorial board (January 16, 2006). "The Truthiness Hurts". The Chicago Tribune. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0601160188jan16,1,4983997.story?ctrack=1&cset=true. Retrieved February 1, 2006.
34.^ Marco R. della Cava (January 15, 2006). "Truth falls to "Pieces" after suspect memoir". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-01-15-truth-debate_x.htm. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
35.^ Frank Rich (January 22, 2006). "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/opinion/22rich.html&OQ=_rQ3D1Q26hp&OP=716faa15Q2FJfr@JRGUhhRJaYYXJYlJaaJhsjpjhpJaaUj!Q5D0Q5DR1v. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
36.^ "The Oprah Winfrey Show (transcript)". January 26, 2006. http://www2.oprah.com/tows/slide/200601/20060126/slide_20060126_350_204.jhtml. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
37.^ David Carr (January 30, 2006). "How Oprahness Trumped Truthiness". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/media/30carr.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
38.^ Jon Bonné (January 27, 2006). "Oprah strikes a blow for truthiness". MSNBC. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11044071/. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
39.^ a b "Hansard". May 4, 2006. http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=1&DocId=2179089#Int-1515982. Retrieved October 16, 2007.
40.^ Heather Clark (January 1, 2006). "Honestly, "truthiness" is selected the word of 2005". The Seattle Times / Associated Press. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002725801_words07.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
41.^ "The Colbert Report: Videos: On Notice (A Glaring Omission)". http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_colbert_report/videos/notice/index.jhtml. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
42.^ "The Colbert Report: Videos: Threatdown". http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_colbert_report/videos/threatdown/index.jhtml. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
43.^ Jake Coyle (January 13, 2006). "Colbert: AP the biggest threat to America". CBS News / Associated Press. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/13/ap/entertainment/mainD8F3VNT8E.shtml. Retrieved November 7, 2006.
44.^ "Exclusive "News": I'm Dead to Stephen Colbert". January 14, 2006. http://asap.ap.org/stories/293280.s. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
45.^ "Will America's New Love Affair With the Truth Extend to Bush's SOTU Speech?". January 31, 2006. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/will-americas-new-love-a_b_14809.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
46.^ "The Colbert Report: Videos (Arianna Huffington)". March 1, 2006. http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=59703. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
47.^ E&P Staff (April 29, 2006). "Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner—President Not Amused?". Editor and Publisher. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002425363. Retrieved May 7, 2006.
48.^ E&P Staff (May 2, 2006). "Tuesday's Letters: Colbert Offensive, Colbert Mediocre, Colbert a Hero, Colbert Vicious, Colbert Brave". http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002426165. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
49.^ "Dept. of Truthiness: The Colbert Rapport". The Washington Post. March 30, 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/29/AR2006042900126.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
50.^ Michael Scherer (May 1, 2006). "The truthiness hurts". Salon. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/05/01/colbert/index_np.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
51.^ "The Colbert Report: Morley Safer Profiles Comedy Central's "Fake" Newsman". March 30, 2006. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/27/60minutes/main1553506.shtml. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
52.^ Rich, Frank (November 5, 2006). "Throw the Truthiness Bums Out". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/opinion/05rich.html. Retrieved November 22, 2006.
53.^ Froomkin, Dan (November 7, 2006). "Bubble Trouble". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/11/07/BL2006110700726_5.html. Retrieved November 22, 2006.
54.^ http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWZlMjhkMzY2ZTE0NDlmZGY3OGY2ZTdiNDk1ZjhlZDc=
[edit] External links
Look up truthiness in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Listen to this article (info/dl). This audio file was created from a revision of Truthiness dated October 17, 2007, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)
More spoken articlesVideo feed of Stephen introducing "Truthiness" on The Colbert Report
Wikiality.com
"Truthiness: a flash in the pan?", Benjamin Zimmer, Language Log
Macmillan Dictionary on truthiness
Global Language Monitor on Top Television Buzzwords